Maple-cured pork chop with greens

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The gastropub is the best thing to happen to British cuisine for half a century. A young chef moves into a shabby pub, buys top quality local produce and puts up a blackboard menu of food that you want to eat: seared scallops with pea pur?e and crisp bacon; shepherd’s pie made with lamb shanks; smoked haddock and mash with grainy mustard sauce.

With its gutsy food and comfortable setting, and without high prices or pretension, the gastropub is our neighbourhood bistro, trattoria and taverna. We could do worse than base our home cooking on its ideals of no-nonsense food,